On a limited size PC screen the handling of a large document and scrolling data contained in the document is somewhat difficult, since only a small amount of data can be simultaneously displayed on the screen. Moreover, in a mobile terminal the size of the screen is even further restricted due to the small size of the device. As a result, handling of large documents and scrolling their content on any device using a display screen can be difficult.
Hereinafter, the term document is used for referring to any kind of file containing data that may be viewed on a screen and scrolled up and down on the screen. Such a document may be a text document, a www page or some other file.
The most common means for scrolling contents of a document in current applications is a vertical scroll bar placed on either side of the screen or application window. Scrolling may be implemented also by means of push buttons; one pointing upward and one pointing downward. Pushing such button may move document for example one or more lines or pages up or down. Also a combination of a scroll bar and push buttons is possible.
FIGS. 6A and 6B show an example of a conventional scroll bar 600, which comprises an upward pointing arrow 601, downward pointing arrow 602, and an elevator 603. Single clicking the upward pointing arrow 601 moves a document a certain number of lines up, single clicking the downward pointing arrow 602 moves document a certain number of lines down. Single clicking the empty space within the scroll bar, above or below the scroll bar, moves the document a certain number of screens up or down.
Sliding the elevator 603, 603′ up or down in the scroll bar moves the view anywhere in the document. The size of the elevator 603, 603′ is relative to the length of the document. When the elevator in the scroll bar is very small, there is a lot of content on the document. This kind of situation is shown in FIG. 6B (elevator 603′). If the elevator is big, there is only a small amount of content on the document. This kind of situation is shown in FIG. 6A (elevator 603). Thus, if the document is long, a relatively small movement of the elevator scrolls up or down a relatively large amount of data.
Scrolling usually may also be accomplished by means of certain keys, such as cursor moving keys or arrow keys, in a keypad, or by the use of a soft key or keys.
Content may be scrolled also in horizontal direction if the content of a document does not fit into the screen or window in its full width. Further, scrolling in horizontal direction may also be necessary if the length of document in a horizontal direction is large. Therefore both vertical and horizontal scrolling can create difficulties for a user.
There are a number of problems with scrolling in an application. Although the problems with scrolling addressed by the invention are related to any electronic device with a display, the difficulties with scrolling on a mobile terminal are especially pronounced. For example, in a mobile terminal or some other mobile device having a relatively small screen, the use of scroll bars described above may be especially difficult or impractical, since the screen, and thereby also the scroll bar, is usually small in relation to the length of the document. In this case even a small movement of the scroll bar up or down moves a relatively large amount of data. The user may tend to lose their place during the scroll. Further, in some applications a scroll distance is not constant for every repeated scroll action. For example, some mobile web browsers combine scrolling with user controlled movement on the screen pointer. With every movement, the screen scrolls to the next closest body of text, link or image, and this variable movement increases the chance of user losing their place when scrolling. Further, this may result in the document being scrolled more than the user actually intended or make finding the right point in a large document difficult.
Many applications which run on a mobile device do not have a scrollbar on the screen at least in order to save valuable screen space. In addition, depending on the way the application implements scrolling (which can vary between applications) scrolling up or down is not always accomplished at a constant rate. It is common for the user to lose their place and have to scan or reread text in order to determine where to continue reading the content. Further, for the same reasons scrolling sometimes does, and sometimes does not overlap the last line or lines of text from one page to another. If the scrolling does overlap the overlap can be displayed at the top or bottom depending on the direction of scrolling. The overlap can especially be difficult to anticipate as it may depend on the size and type of document being scrolled. Thus, scrolling may confuse some users and require unproductive time expended by the user to rescan the document in order to find where they left off after a scanning operation.
To address these problems there is a need to provide interface components that better suit scrolling within applications in an electronic device. Accordingly, there is a need to improve scrolling especially in mobile devices having a relatively small screen.